Never would I have imagined that Christopher McQuarrie could actually surpass Brad Bird's entry into the long-running Mission: Impossible franchise, but here we are. Rouge Nation is a breakneck trip into spy mayhem, filled with death-defying stunts, unexpected twists and turns, and fun, witty dialogue.

This is everything spy films should be. At the same time it's bouncy and fun and dramatic and tense. This isn't like Kingsman where it's so fucking silly that there's zero actual tension there, and this isn't like Skyfall where it takes itself so damn seriously it can barely crack a smile before it has to resume its poe-face. Rouge Nation manages the feat Marvel so desperately attempts - balancing fun and drama in a convincing way.

Tom Cruise really is an underrated action hero. I know that's weird to say considering he's such a huge movie star, but the amount I see people making fun of him as an actor (go ahead and make fun of him as a person, he probably deserves it) is staggering. The naysayers can shut their cynical mouths, though, as Tom proves here that he still has it, and if anything he's only getting better with age.

The supporting players are all spot-on too. I'm glad to see Simon Pegg get more and more Hollywood work, and he makes the comic relief 1) actually funny (a rare thing), and 2) a likable and relatable character who we want to see succeed. So often with comic relief characters in action films, you want to see them die ASAP, so when their life is put in danger you end up rooting for the villains. In fact the one sequence where Cruise's Ethan Hunt is put on a time limit to save Pegg's Benji's life, it's the most intense scene in the film and I was covering my eyes in anticipation.

The plot itself is great fun too. Full of betrayal's, ambiguous loyalties, and constant double-crossing, as any great spy story should. As enjoyable as the story is, it admittedly is mostly there to connect the set-pieces, but man, what set-pieces they are.

Starting off your film with your main star actually physically hanging off the side of a moving plane may seem like a terrible idea. How are you going to top that? Well, Rouge Nation finds a way, and each set-piece is more high-stakes and nail-biting than the last. It really does show how important action is in an action film. That may seem super obvious, but so many Hollywood action films just throw the same boring car chases and gunfights from behind cover while cutting at a rate of about a billion cuts a second, all while filling it with nauseating shaky cam. 2015 has been the year to show the action film is still around and better than ever, with both Furious 7 and Mad Max: Fury Road displaying that well-directed action scenes are still here, and they're still awesome.

And that's what Rouge Nation is. It's awesome. There's only one story hiccup I can think of that I would change, but honestly I forgot about that within 30 seconds of noticing it when the next twist came in. I wouldn't change anything about this, and I can't wait to see it again.

The word 'pretentious' is thrown around a lot these days, especially when talking about arthouse films. I've said it myself, calling filmmakers like Terrence Malick pretentious. That isn't correct and I feel bad for saying it, mostly because I don't get Malick's films and they aren't for me. That doesn't mean I hate them any less or want to watch them any more, but he's doing something that I don't get and that's fine.

Maggie is a pretentious film.

And yes, I'm going to back this up. The dictionary definition of 'pretentious' is:

"attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed."

This fits Maggie perfectly. This is a film that's shot like its Winter's Bone and scored like it too, desperately trying with all its might to show you it's important and worthy. But it isn't. There is nothing here of note.

First thing, it's about fucking zombies. The best zombie film ever made was made 13 years ago, and it was perfectly parodied 12 years ago. It's been done. Done, done, and done. No amount of handheld camerawork, silhouetted shots or emotional scoring will change the fact that Maggie's story is completely unremarkable.

You wanna know how played out Maggie's plot is? Well, imagine that scene from Shaun of the Dead where Shaun has to contemplate killing his own mother and stretch it out to roughly 90 minutes. There you go, that's the story.

I will admit, on its own, the score is really nice and it does look good, but those are tools to tell a story and I found myself completely and utterly bored out of my mind when watching Maggie.

Add in Arnold doing his best 'acting' face, an Abigail Breslin who, god bless her, is really trying her best with this awful material, some truly cringe-worthy dialogue, nonsensical world-building which apparently assumes the audience doesn't know what a fucking zombie is ("see, our zombies are different because they smell really well!"), atrocious exposition, and a meandering plot which goes nowhere then ends abruptly on the least emotional note it could possible end on, and you get one of the absolute worst films of the year.

There's a reason fiction is so over-dramatic; extremity is entertaining.

However, True Story attempts to involve us in a story that is neither particularly extreme or even that remarkable in its 'genre', so to speak.

A character asks towards the end, "how would you place Chris Longo on a list of serial killers? You know, against the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer?", or words to those effect. The fact of the matter is, very low. Chris Longo just isn't a very interesting character, and the film doesn't a really poor job of hiding that fact. It's a shame because in it the film has a rare example of a James Franco performance that isn't over the top and yet also isn't incredibly boring, and he really does his best to give a character depth when there is none.

True Story actually has no point to it. No matter how many wide eyed stares Jonah Hill may provide, or how many melodramatic orchestral booms Marco Beltrami might give us, the fact is the story is dull and fairly banal. The atmosphere is one of a conspiracy thriller, giving us many disparate elements that feel like they're missing evidence that makes it all make sense. Unfortunately I was left waiting for a twist that never came.

The only point True Story seems intent on making is that psychopaths can be manipulative, charismatic, and narcissistic. If that is the point they're trying to make, then well done, you have successfully told the audience something that crime novels have been telling them since the dawn of their existence. There's just nothing that sets this story apart from every other true crime story that's been written before it.

A killer actually convincing a journalist of their innocence just to fuck with them is an interesting idea for a film, but it's barely explored to the point of meaninglessness.

I just feel rather cheated when I got really invested in the story and then found out it had no conclusion that could possibly justify the build up. The whole story amounts to absolutely nothing and ends up being a huge waste of time for everyone involved.

This is actually the same issue I had with Zodiac. Being a true story doesn't get you a free pass. 95 minutes of great build up is completely meaningless if there's no conclusion to back it up.

Had the potential to be a really interesting hard sci-fi in the vein of Phillip K. Dick and Deus Ex, but ends up being a bland, phenomenally dumb shoot 'em up flick with an obviously totally bored, 'I-guess-this-will-hold-me-over-until-Deadpool' Ryan Reynolds, an incredibly predictable yet at the same time totally aimless plot, badly edited 12A action, and characters so stupid I was tearing my hair out, silently screaming at the cinema screen.

It starts off terribly, to the point where I considered turning it off, put once the plot kicks in it becomes ridiculously tense and hokily enjoyable. The plot is utterly insane and John Cusack hams it up like nobody's business, but it makes up for it with a brief running time, fast pace, and great music.

Interestingly, this was written by the guy who wrote and directed Whiplash, which apart from the obvious comparison of being about a musical prodigy, largely shows the writer's trademarks: pressured musicians and a plot that's ridiculous and doesn't make a lick of sense, but it's so stylish and fast paced you don't care and just enjoy it.

]]>James HavesFilms reviewed on That Film Guyhttp://letterboxd.com/jimmyvon789/list/films-reviewed-on-that-film-guy/ letterboxd-list-621943Fri, 10 Jul 2015 12:33:37 +1200Been writing for That Film Guy since 2011. Sorted by release date.

Films are about evoking emotion. Story, character, atmosphere, aesthetic; these are all tools to evoke emotions. This is a list of films that provoke more emotion - whether that be happiness, horror, sadness, humour, anything - than any others.

]]>James HavesFilms That Look Interesting in 2015http://letterboxd.com/jimmyvon789/list/films-that-look-interesting-in-2015/ letterboxd-list-591747Tue, 26 May 2015 23:24:45 +1200Reddit user mookiebomber put together a great list of films that at least look interesting, if not good, that are coming out in 2015.

"Zemeckis who directed the Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump, Contact, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, etc. Brings us his version of the famous story of the french high-wire artist Philippe Petit, as he attempts to cross the Twin Towers back in the 1970s. "Flight," was his last release in 2012."

"the same Scott Cooper who directed "Crazy Heart," that finally won Jeff Bridge's his oscar, now directs a biopic. The true story of Whitey Bulger. Who? I don't know either, but I can't wait to find out about him. Just looking at the cast, it will perhaps be a good one. Johnny Depp, Dakota Johnson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Juno Temple, etc."

"Oculus is a well-rounded horror film that's equal parts scary, creepy, intriguing, and character-focused, with a structure that allows it's plot to be fed to us piecemeal throughout, meaning nothing is given away too fast as to ruin the mystery."

]]>James HavesFilms I saw in 2014 that will stay with mehttp://letterboxd.com/jimmyvon789/list/films-i-saw-in-2014-that-will-stay-with-me/ letterboxd-list-507061Sun, 1 Feb 2015 11:17:12 +1300Not films released this year, but films that I saw in 2014 that will stay with me for a long time.

"It's a film that gets worse the more I think about it, and every time it enters my mind it gets more annoying. It's one of those movies I have nothing positive to say about and has no reason to exist. Fuck this movie, and fuck you Hollywood."

"This is a film that has no idea what it's doing. It thinks it's talking about some grand themes about AI, but never gets beyond basic concepts and skeletons of ideas before throwing in another ludicrous plot turn."

"There's very, very little to recommend about The Purge: Anarchy, from its meaningless and meandering plot, to its complete lack of any kind of tension, to its one-note characters, to its jumbled and aimless social satire."